The Twilight of Mist
by SyfyGuy2
Summary: When the small town of Bridgton, Maine is engulfed by a thick, mysterious mist, Ron Johnson and his family and friends find themselves pitted against enemies they cannot even see!
1. Chapter 1

Just in case you get confused, or can't work it out, this fanfic is based on Frank Darabont's film adaption of Stephen King's The Mist.

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><p><strong>The Twilight of Mist<strong>

Chapter 1

Ron Johnson awoke abruptly as the RRRRRRIIIIINGGG! of his alarm clock filled his ears. He raised himself into a sitting position, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he glanced around the room before him. Ron's room isn't anything special; a small room with a bed, a large TV and Scream and Jaws posters decorating the walls.

Slowly, the memories of the night before returned to him as his brain began to wake. Then, an image of drenching sheets of rain falling across the streets and forks of lightning flashing across the black, cloudy sky flashed through his brain as the memory returned to him: the storm!

The night before, there had been a thunderstorm. And a very strong one at that!

Ron darted out of bed towards the window opposite, half-expecting to find dozens of twisted trees lying across cars and piles of rubble that were once the other houses on Kansas Road.

His excitement dimmed as soon as it was born when he reached the window, but it did not die away. Most of the neighbours' trees and utility poles were either loosened and standing at an awkward angle which reminded Ron of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or fallen across yards, sidewalks and cars. Some neighbours were out on their yards or the sidewalk, hands behind heads, staring at their flattened garages or crushed, precious sportscars.

Ron had been so shocked by the leftover destruction across Kansas Road, by the time he noticed their front yard he had observed nearly all the rest of the chaos! Just below his window, his mother, Elisa, was standing, hands over her mouth, in front of the porch, staring over at the driveway to the left of the house.

Ron followed her gaze and at once saw what had captured her eyes: the oak tree in the nextdoor neighbour's yard had toppled to the right, the fence dividing the two yards and the Johnsons' Land Rover crushed beneath it!

The Land Rover's roof had caved in with the force of the tree, one of the rear wheels had rolled away and rested on the yard path, and all of the rear windows were smashed open with the force.

Elisa had loved that Land Rover. It was the last gift her husband ever gave her before he was manslaughtered on a vacation to Miami. Ever since, Elisa had cherished it, always keeping it sparkling clean, talking to Ron, his 15-year-old sister, Julie, and their 9-year-old brother, Ben, about their father whenever she took them for a ride in it. One time, she even attacked and beat a teenage youth when she caught him spray-painting it. Fortunately, Elisa got off lucky.

Without thinking, Ron pulled himself into blue, denim jeans, a green shirt, and a light-grey hoodie jacket and strode downstairs.

Ron is a skinny person, thirteen and a half years old, with warm, green eyes and shaggy, brown hair.

The staircase at the end of the landing leads down to the hallway. Just in front is the front door, down the hallway to the left is the living room, and at the end is the kitchen. There was a soft meow from down the hall and the Johnsons' cat, Lenny, moved past Ron and up the staircase.

Lenny is usually somewhat 'mischievous', snooping around wherever he isn't meant to unless he knows it's a very bad idea.

Ron was about to open the door when it abruptly swung open and his mother, Elisa, stepped off the porch and into the dimly lit hallway. "Fuck!" she hissed coldly to herself. Then she looked up and noticed Ron.

"Oh, Ronald," she murmured softly. "I'm sorry, darling; I shouldn't have spoken like that. It's just your father's car ..."

Elisa is tall and skinny with curly, blond hair and somewhat glassy blue eyes.

At that moment, Ron spun round to see his brother, Ben, and sister, Julie, moving quickly downstairs behind him.

Julie is tall and thin, with long, dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. Ben, on the other hand, is pudgy-faced and short, much like the deputy manager at the market down Kansas Road. Ben has messy, blond hair like Elisa and green eyes.

Elisa lowered her eyes slightly and sighed, then raised them back to her children. "Kids, I'm gonna go down to the book store to see if they've got anything good there, then I'll pop down to the hardware store."

_Probably that Lord of the Rings book Ben's been begging for since last Christmas_, Ron thought to himself, a thin, weak smile playing across his lips.

"Julie, you're in charge 'til I get back," Elisa said sternly.

"Aww," Ben moaned quietly to himself.

Ron and Julie stood in the open doorway, staring across their front yard as their mother strode down the sidewalk. She turned round to face them and waved them goodbye. Then she disappeared behind the house nextdoor and was gone.

"Look at that," Julie said aloud.

Ron turned to face her and saw she was staring across the street. He followed her gaze and at once saw what had caught her eye: a stripe of pale white cloud or fog, visible some couple hundred feet beyond the set of houses just across the road. Ron couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like it was halfway across the nearby lake already.

"Is that mist?" she said quietly.

"Not like any mist I've ever seen," Ron replied, eyes fixed on the thick, white mist.

Ron could feel it in his guts. There was something unnerving about this mist - if that was indeed what it was. Something ... supernatural! Something...

"Hey, Ron!" a familiar voice called out from up Kansas Road and Ron's mind abruptly snapped away from the strange mist. He spun round in the direction of the voice and felt his heart beat with excitement!

Ron's four friends came tearing down the street toward him, faces red with exhaust.

"Hey, pal," Ron's best friend, Mike Grady gasped as he slowed his pace and regained his breath, hands on knees. Mike is thin, with messy, black hair and blue eyes.

Ron observed the three others behind Mike, hands on knees, gasping, like him.

Kelly Myers, a tall girl with long, blond hair and beautiful facial features and blue eyes.

Harry Jameson, a tall kid with dark-brown eyes and jet-black, curly hair.

And Zoe Roberts, a chubby-looking girl with eyes muddy-brown as her hair, which is tied back in a ponytail.

"What's up with your sis?" Harry asked, eyes fixed over Ron's shoulder. Ron spun round to face Julie and at once saw her eyes still fixed on the approaching bank of mist.

"Julie?" Ron said quietly.

"That's some weird mist," Zoe muttered.

"I saw it coming down the mountain earlier from the military base," Harry proclaimed.

Kelly said, "My dad works up there, on the Arrowhead Project. Says they try to open portals into other dimensions."

Ron quickly stifled a laugh. Mr Myers is a scientist, who works for the Government. He spends most of his time at work, which has been at the Arrowhead base for the past two years.

"Yeah, I bet they're holding It or Lord Fear captive up there!" Ron exclaimed sarcastically. That got everyone laughing except Julie.

Little did any of them know that the coming events would make it no joking matter ever again!

Julie usually acts not much more mature than Ron or Ben, but when something looks serious, she always embraces her responsible side. If only the other kids could have sensed the coming apocalypse that she could!

Once the kids regained their control, the question immediately popped into Ron's head: "What are you guys all doing here?"

"We were heading down to the store to get some candy, but we decided to stop by," Harry replied. Harry is kind and sensible, but if there's something he can't understand, he'll simply deny it. He once even denied atoms existing when he couldn't understand them in science class when he was ten!

"Want to come with us?" Mike asked.

"No thanks," Ron replied. "Hey, wanna come in? I've got some candy, and I just got Jaws on DVD!"

"But I thought the power was out," Zoe exclaimed dumbly. Zoe is something of a horror-movie fan, and she's not exactly the brighter bulb in the group.

"We've got our own generator, remember?" Ron exclaimed as though it should have been obvious, even for her.

Elisa had won the lottery three years back, and had spent the money on a generator for the house.

Kelly said softly, "Yeah, o ..."

The last few letters were drowned out by the loud rumble of three khaki trucks as they rumbled past, and swivelled round the corner up the street, towards the incoming mist.

At once the memory snapped back into Ron's mind as a State Police car tore past after the army vehicles, siren wailing like a banshee.

Ron quickly spun round to face the opposite side of the street and uttered a cry of surprise.

The thick, dull mist was now at the most half as far away as it had been when Ron last looked. His friends noticed it too.

"About that Jaws DVD?" Mike said, his voice trembling slightly.

Mike, Kelly, Zoe, Ron and Harry sat in the sofa, a bowl of popcorn between them, and the movie before them for now erasing all worry or thought of the eerie mist.

Occasionally, however, there was a loud rumble or wailing siren from on the street outside as an Army truck or a police car sped past.

Julie stood, still as stone in front of the large window beside the sofa, eyes fixed on the dull mist as it moved closer to their street.

Then, about a sixth through the movie, a loud, wailing sound from outside quickly snapped Ron's mind away from the movie and returned his memory of the mist once more: the wail rose, then fell, then rose again. It was the civil defence siren.

Ron knew long before he and his four friends reached the window what was happening.

The mist was coming.

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><p>Well, that's the first chapter. Chapter 2 might take a while, though.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dozens of neighbours were out on the street now, staring, petrified as it rolled lazily through the houses across the road, swallowing them whole!

Now that Ron saw it up close, he saw it was mist, but thicker than usual mist, with either very little or no moisture within, and now Ron could see it was actually a pale grey or silvery-white.

It rolled through the front yards across the street next, engulfing the petrified neighbours, and the loosened or fallen trees.

Next were the sidewalk and the road, swallowing cars, utility poles and more transfixed neighbours and passers-by.

Then a loud scream of pain roared from in the mist. Then a choir of roars of surprise and pain.

Ron wanted to stagger and burst away from the window, from the advancing mist as fast as he could. But something rooted him in place; fear, shock perhaps.

The mist rolled across their front yard next. Ron could see fifteen feet ahead, then ten, then eight. Ron could see perhaps nine feet ahead through the mist. Beyond that, it obscured everything. The rear of his father's Land Cruiser at the end of the driveway loomed out of the mist like a ghost ship.

The siren fell deeper this time, then faded away.

"Must be some kind of natural disaster," Harry exclaimed.

Everyone stood, transfixed, staring out into the dull, pale-grey mist for what seemed like hours.

Then they all cried out with surprise as a voice behind them cried out Ron's name!

They all whipped round to face what had spoken Ron's name. And breathed sighs of relief as they stared into Ben's pudgy-looking face.

"I saw the mist come!" he cried frantically, face red. "I heard people screaming and things making sounds!"

"Pipe down!" Ron shouted. "Just stay inside, and we'll be fine!" But Ron knew that that was not necessarily true as he remembered the screams of the people outside as they were swallowed by the mist.

No, he told himself. It's probably just regular fog.

_Get your head out of your ass!_ another part of him screamed. _Remember those people screaming? Who knows what's out there. And what if it, or they decide they want US?_

"I've gotta get going," Harry proclaimed. "My little sister's hanging out in the treehouse over in the woods! I've got to go get her!"

Kelly exclaimed, "Harry, my dad's up the mountain at the Arrowhead base with my brother! You think I don't want to go check they're fine? But look at what's happening out there!"

"I don't f*cking care!" Harry roared. "Besides, there can't be anything out there. There just can't! Now is anyone going to come with me or stay here to fog-gaze?"

Everyone turned to avoid Harry's gaze, unable to look into those worry-stricken eyes.

Harry saw no-one was going with him. "Fine! I'll just go myself." And with that, he turned, and strode out the living room, down the hall towards the kitchen.

"Harry, wait!" Julie called after him.

"Don't go out there!" Ben cried.

The six remaining people rushed through the doorway into the hallway and saw him stride through the open doorway down the hall, into the small kitchen. Ron rushed after him, Zoe, Mike, Kelly, Julie and Ben following close behind him.

They were no more than through the doorway when Harry yanked the screen door across the kitchen open, and stepped out from the protection of the house. He swung the screen door shut behind him, and glanced back over his shoulder as his friends crowded around the screen door.

The moment they stared into his wet, worry-filled eyes, they knew: no matter what they did, there was no stopping him.

Harry cast them a worried glance. Ron knew that Harry knew what was going to happen somewhere deep down. But his worry for his little sister had overcome his sensibility in the end.

Then Harry turned away from the screen door, from the faces of his friends, and strode across the backyard through the mist, became a pencil-ink sketch of a human against the mist, and was gone.

The kitchen fell silent, except for the faint voices and theme music of Jaws in the living room as the movie continued. Ron could see the neatly-mown green grass of the backyard-lawn, but nine feet ahead, it turned pale-grey and faded into the mist.

Then Ron did the only thing he could do, and turned the key in the screen door's lock.

Two or three minutes passed.

Ron was about to turn away from the blanket of mist ... and cried out with shock and horror as a shape burst out of the mist and slammed into the glass of the screen door!

Ron recognised it at once; it was Harry.

Blood was running down his face and chest. Where his shirt had once been, a shallow ring of red flesh and blood had been chewed and nibbled into Harry's lower torso, and Ron felt his stomach churn at once.

But then something else caught Ron's attention: the loud, grinding creaking and crunching of the trees of the woods beyond the backyard as they were torn from their roots.

Ron shifted his gaze to the source of the noise ... and cried out. A dark shadow nearly twice the size of a house against the mist loomed behind Harry. It was huge and round, and strutted slowly on three bladelike legs.

The moment Ron saw it, he pictured that monstrous shape crushing the house beneath its bladelike legs and then crushing his body beneath itself!

And before he knew it, he was staggering-falling backwards from the screen door, from the giant monstrosity, screaming at the top of his voice.

Harry's eyes widened with shock, and Ron at once knew that he had noticed from his expression what was behind him, and Harry slammed and slammed his fists against the glass, his screams competing with Ron's.

The monster was still mostly obscured in mist, but it was close enough now for Ron to make out a long, thin slit on its bulbous body, where Ron assumed its face was.

At least, if it had a face other than its slit-mouth.

Ron froze on the floor, eyes fixed on the giant monster as the slit-mouth opened up, and at least a dozen foot-thick, coiling, tentacle-like shapes slithered out, down through the mist towards the ground, and shot forward out of the mist at Harry from behind.

Most of the tentacles just slipped around Harry in coils, but four or five held their positions on either side of Harry. _In case he somehow breaks free,_ Ron thought,

his screaming dying away.

Harry thrashed his bloody arms and legs wildly, as the coiling tentacles tightened their grip.

They were a pinkish colour, like burnt flesh, with rows of curled, black claws running down their sides.

Ron could clearly see the undersides of the tentacles at Harry's sides, and at once understood why Harry's lower torso had been eaten away.

In place of suction cups, the tentacles' undersides were forested with hundreds of short stubs, each ending in a small, puckering mouth! And near the tip of each tentacle, was a thin, slit-like mouth - like the one on the monster's bulbous body from which the tentacles had emerged - filled with tiny, grey, needle-like teeth!

The tentacles tensed theirselves and tightened their grip as their mouth-suckers slowly ate deeper into Harry's flesh ... and lifted him off the yard lawn and up, into the mist, into the giant monster's waiting mouth!

The tentacles withdrew further back into the monster's mouth, until they were lost to sight.

Then the slit of a mouth closed back up like healing flesh.

The giant monster turned slowly on its blade-legs, slowly moved on them back into the mist and was gone.

The only noise outside now was the loud crunching of trees as the monster stepped over the ones it had brought crashing down in its wake.

When Rick and the others had gotten a hold of theirselves after seeing the giant monster kill Harry, they boarded up the windows with nails and wooden boards from the attic, and moved the sofa in front of the screen door.

Either one of the remaining seven people sat at a window, keeping watch through the thin gaps between the wooden boards for more creatures, like the one which had taken Harry.

Ron slumped in front of the living room window in a wooden chair he had brought out from the dining room, Ben laying limp with tire on his back on the woollen carpet by the TV. Ron only averted his eyes from the window to check on Ben or grab a snack from the kitchen.

For hours on end, he merely sat, petrified, staring out into the mist, knowing that something which would make the tentacle monster seem like little more than a bumblebee, might burst out of the mist without warning, burst into the living room and tear Ron and Ben apart as they screamed their agony in their last moments.

But by 7:30, nothing had even moved out in the mist. In fact, the only proof left that Ron and the others hadn't imagined Harry being eaten by the giant monster was the dry, tacky blood blotched across the screen door, and the footprints of blood (leading up to the screen door) in the part of the lawn visible through the mist.

Little did anyone know the REAL monsters would come with the night.


	3. Chapter 3

I know, I'm publishing this story's chapters seriously fast, but I'm certain that it'll slow down before Chapter 7.

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><p><span>Chapter 3<span>

Night fell at around 8:40. The mist turned from its dull, pale grey to the deep-blue colour of a late-evening sky. Julie switched on some of the lights.

Not long after dark came, a shadow or two against the mist, like the tentacle monster, would move around every now and then, or there would a low mechanical wheeze or a deep, half-human howl.

But by 11 PM, none of them had even taken notice of the house, with its bright lights glowing against the mist through the gaps between the windows' boards, and the movement inside.

And the tentacle thing only attacked Harry because he went outside, Ron remembered, but it ignored the rest of us. Plus, sight would almost useless to animals living in mist this thick!

Ron hesitated for a moment.

Then he lowered his eyes, walked over to the sofa across the room, and slumped against the wall across the room beside Ben.

"What are you doing?" Kelly hissed, standing in the doorway.

Ron whipped round to face her. "I don't think those things will attack us when we're inside."

"But what if you're wrong?" Kelly exclaimed.

"Think about it!" Ron growled. "Sight would be almost useless to them in this, and the one that killed Harry only attacked him because he went out, and ignored the rest of us." Ron thought for a moment. "These things ... I think they hunt by smell."

Ron was about to rise up when he heard a soft thump that made his heart skip a beat! Then a second. A third.

Ron saw his fear mirrored in Kelly's face.

The two slowly turned their heads to face the source of the soft thumps: the window.

Ron hesitated for what seemed like hours.

Then, he finally stepped briskly forward, towards the window, towards the place where the soft thumps from whatever it was out there had come from.

Ron slowly kneeled down, a part of him expecting some long, coiling tentacle to smash through and drag him out into the mist, screaming.

But what Ron found himself staring at through the gaps between the boards was far more astonishing than some flesh-eating tentacle.

They were like bugs. Three of them, each one having made a thump when it landed on the glass, each about a foot long, with long, gossamer wings.

Each one of the bugs had a plump, purple, hard-looking, segmented body with six of eight pinkish, pod-like legs sticking to the glass.

The body of each bug, Ron noticed, ended in a long, bulbous tail ending in a stinger, which reminded Ron of a scorpion's tail. And Ron could see jointed things wriggling and twitching on the bug-things' undersides and at once felt the few candy bars and potato-chips he had managed to gulp down rising back up from his stomach!

Then at once it snapped to Ron's mind: what's drawn these things here? Sound? Movement? The ...

_Slow down!_ Ron scolded himself. _Think it through, slowly._ Ron raised an arm slowly to his chin.

At that moment, Ron heard the thunderous roar of the four others tearing down the hall towards him, Ben and Kelly.

"Guys?" he heard Mike hiss, and Kelly reply, "We know."

"Okay," he whispered to himself. "They're like flies. And what are flies attracted to that most other bugs aren't?"

He puzzled the question over his mind for what seemed like hours, not daring to take his eyes off the bugs, slowly crawling over the glass window, leaving sticky, round footprints of slime like snail trails. Then it came to him: light!

The moment the word burst into Ron's mind, something with four leathery wings swooped out of the mist, wings flapping, like an avenger of the night, scooped up one of the bugs in a talon, and swooped back into the mist.

And before he knew it, Ron was on his back, crawling, pulling, away from the scorpion-tailed bugs, from the four-winged monster.

"It's the lights!" Ron found himself screaming ceaselessly. "TURN OUT THE LIGHTS!"

Everyone stood, staring at him like some alien on exhibit. Then Julie realized what he meant and tore through the crowd, through the doorway, for the door to the cellar, to the generator.

Ron quickly staggered to his feet, and stumbled away from the window, against the opposite wall.

"What's the screaming?" Ron heard Ben moan absent-mindedly as he rose into a sitting position.

"What is it?" Mike exclaimed worriedly. "What is it? What's out there."

Ron didn't need to answer.

A bare instant later, one of the bird-things smashed through the boards, sending chunks of wood and glass everywhere, and touched down on the carpet just beside Ben, its wings folded.

Ron could see it clearly in the bright light from the overhead light; it was just over half the size of a full-grown man, with one of its pairs of leathery wings protruding from its back, the other two wings each where one of its arms should have been. Its skin was bare and pink, with no hair or feathers (like a pterodactyl), two thin, delicate-looking, double-jointed legs, a milky eye as pale grey as the mist in the day protruding from either side of its head, and a heavy, oversized-looking, hooked beak.

The bird-pterodactyl-thing spread its wings out at its sides, shaking off splinters and shards of glass, dumbly cocking its head left and right.

Ben sat, frozen, beside the bird-pterodactyl, his eyes wide with a mix of fear and astonishment. He was mere inches from its heavy, hooked beak!

Ron immediately pictured the bird-pterodactyl pouncing on a transfixed Ben and tearing the meat from his bones, chunk by chunk. And before Ron knew it, without hesitation, he tore the TV from its place atop the desk against the wall beside him, and raised it above his head to send smashing down on the bird monster.

But before Ron could, one of the bugs flew out of the mist through the jagged hole in the wall where the window had once been and buzzed through the doorway into the hallway.

The moment the bird noticed the bug, it immediately took flight again and flew through the air after the bug, into the hallway.

"SOMEBODY GET THAT COVERED UP!" Ron heard Mike scream at the top of his voice beside him.

A bare instant later, darkness swept across the room, save for the deep blueness of the mist through the jagged remains of the window.

"Turn it back on!" Mike yelled, and a few seconds later light flooded back into the room.

Without thinking, Ron at once tore across the room and burst into the hallway.

The bug was flying crazily, in loops and circles and zigzags, back and forth across the hallway, the bird-thing swooping after it just behind.

Ron turned his head to the front door, careful to stay out of the path of the freaky bug-thing and the pterodactyl-bird-like thing swooping after it. At once an idea to rid himself of both the bug and the monstrous bird exploded into Ron's mind.

He turned to see if the bug was about to buzz in his direction and at once felt whatever hope his plan had given him die away as soon as it was born.

The bird had perched itself on the desk which held up the telephone (which was now hanging from the desk by its cable), the squirming, foot-long bug caught in its oversized, hooked beak. The bird clamped shut its beak on the bug with a bone-crushing snap, tilted back its head, and let the gooey, broken remains of the bug's body slide down its beak and vanish beyond sight down its throat.

The bird gave a loud, swallowing gulp, and lowered its head, eyes dumbly scanning the room for more of the bug-things.

After a minute or so, its eyes fixed on Ron, and he at once saw the hungry glare in the creature's eyes and a spark of hope returned, but bringing a flood of fear with it!

And before Ron knew it, he was dashing full-speed for the door, and within seconds, his sweaty hand was closed tightly over the key (which Zoe had carelessly left in its lock) and spinning it frantically in its lock.

Without so much as glancing over his shoulder, he swung the door open stumbled-staggered back from the doorway to the mists of undoubted hell! A bare instant later, the bird swooped at the spot where Ron had stood a split second before, and flew out the doorway. Without hesitation, Ron swiftly slammed the door shut in its frame, turned the key in its lock and tore it out of its lock.

"TURN OFF THE LIGHTS!" Ron screamed down the cellar at Julie. Within seconds, the darkness washed back over Ron, and this time, he was half-relieved of it.

Mike, Kelly and Julie had covered the broken window up with plastic sheeting and duct tape. It wouldn't keep out another one of those bird-things, but as far as Ron knew, the bugs and birds would leave them alone without any light, and the others would too if they kept all the doors and windows closed.

Some of the other windows had been smashed open, but the boards had held and the screen door was intact. Ben slept in his room upstairs, Lenny on the bed with him, but everyone else was restless.

The room was dimly lit by a small candle in the centre of the table. The five teenagers sat around the table in the dining room, all eyes on Ron.

Like a Government meeting, Ron thought crazily.

"But if your whole scent theory about these things is right," Mike proclaimed, breaking the long silence which had followed Ron's explanation of his scent theory, "then why did the bugs and the birds attack the house?"

"Because the bugs were attracted by the light, like ordinary flies, and the birds were following their prey," Ron replied.

"But how does that help us?" Zoe exclaimed. "We don't even know what this mist is!"

"No," Julie said quietly, "but I think we can guess where it came from." Her eyes fixed on Kelly, like a detective's eyes upon the suspect. Then all other eyes followed Julie's gaze.

"The Arrowhead Project," Ron said flatly.

"Your dad was telling the truth about it, wasn't he Kelly?" Mike backed up. "This mist. It's, what, another dimension?"

Kelly shyly raised her eyes to the accusing faces of her former friends. "Dad was on edge, yelling something about him and the others up there making a window into other dimensions, I barely understood him."

"Here's where this smell theory on those things out there helps us," Ron said, and began to explain his plan.

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><p>And that's the third chapter of The Twilight of Mist. If you've read up to here, please review.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was very risky, but simple: most of the neighbours who lived in their part of Kansas Road mostly leave their car doors locked, but a great slob called Mr Leverton lived just six or seven houses up Kansas Road, just by the turn onto the private road to the lake, and has an RV which he usually leaves parked outside his house, and can't be bothered to lock it.

Elisa twice said even that she saw him leave the keys in the ignition!

If they all get in the RV and close all the doors and windows, then the creatures would get no scent.

They were all too young to drive, but Julie was the oldest, so she could try. Then, they could pick up Elisa from the book store, or the hardware store, and drive as far south as the RV took them and try to get clear of the mist.

"But who knows how far this mist has spread?" Mike exclaimed. "Plus, that thing probably doesn't have enough fuel to get us to Portland!"

"And if we go out, won't those things be able to smell us and attack?" Kelly backed up.

"That's a risk we have to take," Julie proclaimed.

"If this mist has spread too far for the RV's fuel to get us clear of, we're all dead!" Mike yelled.

"If we stay here until one of those bigger things passes by and flattens the house, we're all dead!" Julie contradicted, voice rising.

"Calm down," Ron said quietly. "If anyone gets attacked before we get to the RV, they head back to the house."

Murmurs rang quietly across the table as people began to discuss Ron's plan. "When are you planning we leave?" Mike demanded over the mutters and murmurs.

"7:30 tomorrow morning," Ron replied. "As far as we know so far, those things are a lot less active at day. But for now, we all need our sleep for tomorrow."

At once, everyone at the table rose from their chairs, turned, and strode from the room in search of a place to sleep.

Ron was awoken at about half-past seven by Julie. Once he had blinked the sleep from his eyes and fully awoke, he saw the mist had returned to its pale-grey colour with dawn.

He was apparently the last to be awoken. Ben was clutching Lenny tightly to his chest.

"I've got to go get something," Ron proclaimed to the people before him, and before they could ask what it was, he was bursting up the staircase, onto the landing, and tearing towards his room.

The room was as he had left it yesterday morning.

Ron dived under his bed, his hands searching the floor for it. Then they met something cold and metal.

Without thinking, Ron pulled it out and saw at once that it was what he had been searching for: a small handgun, caked in dust. Brushing the dust lightly from the handgun, he checked the speed-loader. It had six rounds in it, just as Ron had left it the day he took it.

He thought of how he took it and a shudder ran down his spine. Shaking the memory away from his head, he shut the speed-loader, slipped the handgun into his back pocket, and raced back downstairs into the hallway.

Julie stood in front of the door, one hand squeezed tightly over the doorknob, the other holding an old meat cleaver. Everyone else had gotten the idea, and everyone except Ben had a kitchen knife or a hammer, or even a screwdriver! Ben had Lenny clutched tightly to his chest.

"I'll go first, everyone behind me," she proclaimed. She sounded calm and confident, but Ron could see in her eyes, somewhere deep down, she was scared out of her mind, just like everyone else in the house.

Julie's eyes shifted from person to person until she had observed everyone in the room. Then she said, "Ready?" Everyone nodded, but shakily. They were all just as scared.

And Julie swung the front door open and burst out into the mist.

Everyone hesitated for a split second, but then tore out after her, Ron in the lead, into the mists of unknown hell!

Ron glanced to his right in time to see the crushed Land Rover and the tree atop it loom out of the mist.

Ron could see just past the sidewalk ahead.

"Julie!" he yelled at the top of his voice. No reply.

"Come on!" he shouted, not looking back, and took off towards the sidewalk.

Ron glanced back and forth as he ran, at the parked or abandoned cars looming out of the mist, expecting some hideous monster to burst out of the mist and tear into him as he screamed.

Julie glanced back over her shoulder and saw that if her friends were indeed behind her, they had been swallowed up by the mist!

She stared straight ahead, running, and felt a wave of relief wash over her as the curb materialised out of the mist ahead.

She quickly turned the curb and an RV loomed out of the mist just up ahead.

Julie knew from the moment she came close enough to the RV to make it out through the mist that this had to be Mr Leverton's RV; dried mud and earth was splattered and sticking to the RV's bumper and wheels.

She slammed herself against the passenger door, then glanced up the street for anything coming. She could just see past the rear end of the RV, but beyond that the mist obscured everything.

With a hard tug, Julie pulled the door open and threw herself in, against the passenger seat.

Before Julie even had the chance to reach to slam shut the door, her heart skipped a beat as she heard a high, throaty, mewling-screeching sound. It sounded like it was coming from inches in front of the RV.

Julie slowly trained her eyes on the windshield and opened her mouth in a long scream.

She had looked in time to see something leap out of the mist and touch down on the hood of the RV like a cheetah from the grass onto the hood of a safari car!

Julie got a very good look at it. It was about the size of a dog, with a body the basic shape of a spider's. It was slaty-grey, with eight spiny, jointed legs, and a hunched thorax. Dozens of long, thin hairs jutted and curved back from the spider's back. Four reddish-black eyes were bulging in the spider's skull-like head, and stared viciously in at Julie with hunger. For a nose, the spider's skull-face had a single hole in the middle, and where the spider's chin should have been, there were four thin, jointed mandibles. The spider's jaw, Julie saw clearly, was full of crooked, ugly-looking teeth, and two mandibles, clenched, like fingers into fists, making them look like two great fangs.

Julie quickly gripped her hand over the door handle, and pulled, full-force.

A bare instant, after the door slammed shut, Julie felt her whole body jump as the spider rammed itself full-force into the windshield.

She was inches from its hungry, vicious eyes!

The force of the impact had left a spiderweb of cracks, but the glass had held.

The spider hissed a deep, mewling sound and stopped. Julie realised why at once; it could not smell her inside the RV with the doors closed and the windows rolled up.

Its eyes stayed fixed on her, searching for any remaining trace of her scent. After perhaps five seconds, the spider gave up. It turned on its eight spindly legs, and leapt off the RV's hood onto the sidewalk.

Its abdomen, Julie saw, wasn't much bigger than its head, and was broad and shaped more like a wasp's than any earthly spider's.

The spider strutted busily on its eight jointed legs past the door, and was out of sight.

Julie pressed her face against the rear window and craned her head in time to see the spider up the street in the mist, just within her sight. Then the spider strutted up the street into the mist, and was gone.

Julie sat, frozen for what seemed like hours. Then she slumped back against the seat and let out a long sigh of relief.

She sat, gazing calmly through the spiderweb-cracked windshield, out into the mist.

She could just see past the curb. Beyond that, the mist obscured everything.

Then three dark shapes against the mist came tearing round the curb, towards the RV, but before fear had a chance to freeze into her, the dark shapes solidified into her two brothers, and Kelly.

The three dashed across the sidewalk, past the passenger door and out of sight.

A second later, Julie heard the slight squeak of the rear door's hinges as it opened, the thunder of footsteps behind her, the slam of the rear door, and heavy panting.

Julie glanced over the seat, and saw Kelly, Ron and Ben, hands on knees, faces red with exhaust. Lenny stood at Ben's feet, glancing around nervously.

Something was not right. It didn't come to her straight away, but after a little while, she realised: "Where's Mike and Zoe?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Mike stood, silent, by the front door from the house, Zoe beside him. The two had not gone out with the others, though none of the others had noticed.

Mike's gaze fixed on Zoe's fear-whitened face. "Ready this time?"

She silently nodded in response.

And without another word, Mike swung the front door open, and he and Zoe burst out, from the safety of their friend's home, into the mists of all manner of monstrosities from who knows what other, hellish world!

By the time Zoe was more than halfway out the doorway, Mike was little more than a faint blotch against the mist up ahead. Then the mist obscured him completely from sight, and he was gone.

The moment Zoe was past the doorway, her chubby legs locked in a cross-shape and she went falling against the stone path, facedown.

Mike slowed to a halt from his dash from the house, and glanced in all directions for anything emerging from the mist to tear him apart.

He was standing in the middle of the road, cars looming out of the mist all around him, most parked or pulled over when the mist came.

Once Mike was sure nothing was coming through the mist at him, he noticed Zoe was nowhere to be seen.

Mike screamed her name as he spun to face the house. It had been completely swallowed by the mist. The ends of the branches of the tree lying over Elisa's Land Rover jutted out of the mist, and Mike could see just past the sidewalk, but beyond that, the mist obscured everything.

Before Mike had a chance to yell out Zoe's name again, a low, mechanical groan echoed faintly through the mist from down the road.

Mike slowly turned to see the monster which had made the noise, half-expecting it to burst out of the mist and tear him to shreds before he could blink ... and saw something that made his eyes bulge in horror.

The giant was at least sixty feet down the street, but thanks to its massive size, Ron could just make it out through the mist. It was about five or six stories high, with a curved, wiry body, and an elongated head which reminded Mike of that of the creature from Alien.

It strutted on six or eight jointed legs which looked slightly undersized compared to the rest of the giant's body.

The giant's arms were long, double-jointed, skinny limbs. They looked much like those of a mantis, but with huge pincers in place of spiked claws.

The mist obscured the rest of it.

An icy blade of both shock and fear stabbed at Mike's heart as the mantis-giant strutted slowly through the mist on its jointed legs, hell-bent on tearing and cutting Mike's body in those huge pincers!

And before Mike knew it, he was staggering up the road, away from the towering giant, towards the safety of the RV Ron had proclaimed.

Was the giant monster chasing after him? Would he make it to the safety of the motorhome?

A silver Toyota pickup which had been skidded to a halt in the middle of the road loomed out of the mist up ahead. From what Mike's fear didn't prevent him from seeing, the driver's window was rolled all the way down, there was a dent in the driver's door, at least a foot deep, and the passenger door had been flung open.

Mike was about to bolt past the pickup, but before he could move any further, a high, rising shriek, which reminded Mike of a falcon's squawk, echoed through the mist as the mantis-giant's groan had done.

Mike wanted to tear through the mist for the RV, full speed, but fear held him rooted in place.

Then, something leapt out of the mist, like one of the raptors from Jurassic Park, and touched down atop the roof of the pickup before Mike.

It looked much like a raptor from Jurassic Park, except with scaly, grey skin stretched over its agile body and four or five long spines shaped like feathers jutting out of its back.

In place of a long, elongated snout, the creature had a stubby, white beak, and a flat face set into an oval-shaped head. The raptor's eyes were a dull, yellowish-orange with pinpricks for pupils, and its forearms were shaped like mantis-claws.

Its legs were long, thin and double-jointed, like a Mesozoic raptor's, but instead of ending each in three claws (the middle big and shaped like a sickle), each leg ended in four webbed, yellow talons.

The raptor opened its beak in a vicious, squeaky shriek which Mike recognised as the one he heard moments before it attacked, and he saw the small beak was filled with hundreds of slimy-green, needles of teeth!

Zoe uttered a groan of pain as she felt it surge through her face.

Slowly, she raised her face from the hard pavement of the path, agony searing through her skull.

As she remembered where she was, all notice of the pain drained away and she quickly pulled herself to her feet.

The moment she did so, a roar of agony echoed through the mist from somewhere up the street.

It was Mike.

Zoe was about to dash up the street, to rescue Mike so that the two of them could escape to the RV, but she knew that if he wasn't already dead, he would be any second then. She was inches from the house.

Zoe's mind was abruptly snapped away from her ponder of this dilemma back to reality as the mewl-screech of one of the spiders rang in her left ear.

Her head swiftly whipped to her left in time to see one of the spiders, like the one which attacked the RV but smaller, strut busily out of the mist and stop a few feet away. Its chin-mandibles were closed into a chin twice the size of a golfball.

The spider's mandibles opened up as it let out a low, moaning growl.

There was another mewl-screech from in front of her.

At once, Zoe turned to see another one of the spiders just visible up ahead.

This spider was big. It uttered a loud mewl-screech, and rose up just enough for Zoe to see its wasp-like abdomen. At that moment, there was a loud, squealing sound, and Zoe saw a white cable jet from the tip of the spider's abdomen straight at her face.

A web strand, she realised. It would have camouflaged well against the mist, but contrasted greatly against the spider's shadow on the mist.

A split second later, the web strand stuck to her face in a mess like spaghetti noodles in a bowl.

The moment the web strand touched Zoe's face, she felt a searing pain, like fire, shoot through her skull as the web-strand burnt her face away!

Zoe's hands beat and tore at what remained of her face, trying to pull the web out before it could cause any further damage, but it only left deep, burning cuts in the palms of her hands, and added more pain to the agony.

Suddenly, Zoe collapsed in the lawn, what was once her face buried in the earth, the pain multiplying tenfold every second as the web ate deeper into her skull.

Zoe wanted to scream and weep her pain and anguish, but she no longer had any face to either scream or weep with.

At that moment, Zoe felt something about the size of a dog touch down on her back, its weight just slightly lighter than a dog's.

Zoe realised what was happening at once: a third spider had joined in and leapt onto her back.

About two or three seconds later, Zoe felt hot, rancid breath against the flesh on the back of her neck and the spider's crooked teeth and fang-like mandibles clamp tightly over her upper-spine.

One part of Zoe wanted to throw the otherworldly monster off. The other was begging that the creature cut the torment and agony short. That part of her wasn't disappointed.

There was the sound of bone and spine being crushed in jaws, the shortest cut bolt of pain anyone could have ever experienced, and everything was gone.

Ron stood, glancing around at the interior of the RV.

To his right, was a tall, stained fridge. Behind it was a small desk with a wide window against the wall and seats on either side, much like a boat cabin. At the back of the RV, was a doorway through which, Ron could see an old, single bed, the covers left thrown about.

To Ron's left, was a sink and oven with a wide window overlooking what was visible through the mist outside, an oven and a small cubicle in the wall which Ron guessed was the loo.

"Are we going?" Kelly said nervously, breaking the silence.

"Going," Julie replied, slipping in behind the wheel. Ron slid into the passenger seat next to her, Lenny trotted around to explore, and Ben and Julie sat silently around the cabin-like table.

Julie turned the key in the ignition, and felt relief wash through her at the confident roar of the engine. Then the relief flickered as she remembered what Mike had said about the RV's fuel. She cast a nervous glance at the fuel gage, but the relief flared again as she saw the gage was almost on the F.

For what seemed like hours, Julie sat behind the wheel, cautiously glancing through the driver's window and the windscreen for anything that might be attracted by the exhaust.

When nothing happened, Julie switched on the front headlights - even with the headlights on, she could only see nine feet through the mist - and drove round the curb, and so the journey began.

As Julie drove past the pickup they had passed on the way to the RV, she noticed something was different to when she ran past it. Julie had been too scared out of her mind to get a proper look at it, but the hood and windscreen of the abandoned pickup was washed in dripping, fresh blood and ragged shreds of jeans and shirt, and Julie was sure it hadn't been like that when she first passed it.

Then Julie remembered how Mike and Zoe hadn't made it to the RV and a shudder ran down her spine.

Before another dark thought could crawl into her mind, she hastily swerved around the pickup and drove down the road at a steady five miles an hour, towards their mother.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Some urge or emotion made Julie and Ron pass by her and her family's former home as close as she could. The flattened Land Rover and the tree lying atop it loomed out of the mist to the left.

Julie drove the RV across the front yard, and just as the RV passed the sidewalk, their house loomed out of the mist across the lawn.

Perhaps Mike or Zoe had been able to retreat back into the house, Julie thought. But that little sparkle of hope for them died away almost as soon as it was born as she put the RV in park halfway across the lawn, and took a good look at the house.

A puddle of fresh blood, like the blood on the pickup, was patterned across the path just beyond the door, which Julie could see, was wide open.

At that moment, a new urge flared into Ron.

Without thinking, he swung his door open, and burst out, into the mists of hellish terror.

The moment he did so, the frantic cries of Ben and Julie and Kelly rang in his ears.

Following instinct rather than common sense, Ron burst full-speed for the front door, closed it gently, and tore across the yard, back towards the RV.

Ron heard something scurrying after him, but he didn't dare turn back to see what it was. He slipped back into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.

"You could have been killed, you son of a b*tch!" Julie snarled furiously through gritted teeth.

The moment Ron climbed back into the RV, his senses began to return. He opened his mouth to apologize, but before anything could escape his throat, Julie put the RV back into drive, and began to pull away from the house, back onto Kansas Road.

Imagining that Ben was doing the same at the table, Ron quickly craned his neck to get one last look at the only home they had ever known.

At once memories of the kitchen, the living room, even the boring old cellar came flooding back to Ron, and he cherished every one of them.

Then the house faded back into the mist behind them, and it was gone.

It was another five houses, then the comic store, and finally the candy store, Super Sweet, to the book store. Two of the houses were dark and abandoned, but each one of the rest and the comic and candy stores, had the front door or a window wide open, and beyond the doorway or windows, Ron and Julie could clearly see thick white silk, exactly like cobwebs, clinging to every surface the mist which was eddying in allowed Ron and Julie to see.

Finally, the book store loomed out of the mist up ahead.

Ron immediately pictured him and Julie and Ben finding their mother safe inside, and embracing, happy to be together again.

But as Julie pulled up beside the door and put the RV in park, and Ron saw the door, every trace of hope and excitement to see his mother again came crashing down and his heart sank into a never-ending abyss.

The door had been propped open with a block, and, beyond the open doorway, Ron could see the rows of bookshelves had been coated in the thick, cobweb-like silk he had seen in the houses they had passed.

"Ben don't look," Ron instructed, his voice trembling. He turned to Julie. "Maybe she's still in there, maybe ..." Ron saw Julie's gaze fixed on the display windows, tears welling in her eyes.

Ron, hoping he wouldn't find what he feared he would, slowly followed her gaze, and immediately felt his heart go plummeting down the infinite abyss again, only much faster this time.

There was a tall bookshelf placed in front of the massive display window. Like the ones in the doorway, it was coated with thick cobwebs. But in the middle of this one, Ron could clearly see two shapes in the cobwebs, side by side.

The first, Ron saw, had long, messy hair, and its head was tilted back, mouth a gaping, round hole.

It was Bruce, the store owner, who had always been so polite and kind and helpful to any customer who set foot in his store, even the straight-minded Bud Brown!

The second ... Ron recognised it at once.

It was his mother, her eyes closed and peaceful.

Ron sat, transfixed, staring at the dead corpse of his mother.

But then, out of the edge of his sight, he saw the web-covered figure of his mother turn her head slightly and open her eyes.

Julie saw it too. The two both leaned towards the driver's window to get as clear a look as they could, and saw her open her mouth in two inaudible syllables.

Ron was about to lean back to throw his door open and go dashing out to the book store, towards his mother, but then her eyes went wide with horror, and Ron saw why almost at once: tiny, crawling shapes were crawling out from beneath Elisa's web cocoon, leaving thin tracks of blood behind them.

Then some instinct made Ron reach for Julie's door, roll down the window, and slip the handgun from his back pocket and hold it at point-blank range.

Ron hesitated for a moment.

Then he squeezed the trigger, and there was the loud BLAM! of the gunshot, the smashing sound of countless jagged pieces of glass coming crashing down to the sidewalk.

Ron heard Ben cry out in surprise at the gunshot and Kelly screamed at him not to look.

A mere second later, Ron watched on in horror as his mother's body burst open, pouring out thousands of the small, crawling things onto the glass-littered sidewalk.

Then, as Julie quickly rolled the window back up, she and Ron buried their faces against the dashboard and cried.

It took Ron and Julie about half an hour to stop crying.

When they looked back, they saw most of the hatchling spiders had crawled off into the mist, but a few stilled crawled over the litter of glass and the sidewalk.

Julie started the engine back. She and Ron cast one last look at the ruined remains of their mother. Then Julie pulled away from the book store and it was gone.

They drove south down Kansas Road. Apparently, most of the cars that were driving had pulled over to the side of the road when the mist came, but once or twice, there was a car in the road, upturned or smashed apart. Most of the cars had been pulled over, their doors wide open or their windows rolled down. Most of them were deserted, but some had a human shape coated in the spiders' cobweb-silk in the driver's seat, head slumped against the wheel, and sometimes some more human shapes covered in the webs in the passenger or rear seats, slumped against the window.

Since the surface of Maine was riddled with rivers, Julie had to drive across a bridge a few times. Most of the fully intact ones were too high up from the river below for anyone to see through the mist the things that might have been crawling or slithering in the water.

But one of the bridges was fairly low, and the left-hand side of it had fallen into the water.

Julie easily crossed the bridge by driving along the right-hand, intact side, but as she passed, she saw through the driver's window, down the drop, at least half a dozen shapes moving through the mist in what she guessed was the water of the river below.

Although the bridge was low, the river was still too far down for Julie to clearly make out the creatures through the mist, and the ripples running across the water's surface only helped the mist obscure the swimmers. But from what Julie could tell, their skin was armoured, like a crocodile's, but with at least three dorsal fins protruding from their backs, and they each had a long, shark-like tail. But beyond that, the mist and the rippling water obscured them.

Julie wanted to pull over closer to the drop to get a clearer look at the swimmers, but then she remembered she was inches from it. Then, the drop was behind them as Julie drove on.

At Exit 11 onto the Maine Turnpike, the sign marking it had partially collapsed, and the right-hand side of the sign was lying across the road. The left-hand side, however, was about ten feet above the road, and the RV narrowly squeezed under it.

They had only driven about a mile further on from Exit 11, when a dark shadow at least the size of a house glided out of the mist overhead.

Julie quickly slammed down on the brakes and put the RV in park. Ben and Kelly rushed up to the front of the RV to see what had made Julie stop the RV.

Less than a split second later, the flying thing was almost just above the RV, and solidified enough for everyone to quite clearly see it.

The mist obscured the flying thing's colour, but its body was shaped like a cross, but without the top end, and with twin, vein-riddled webs tapering from the arms to the lower body.

Each end of the flying thing ended in thin, coiling tendrils.

Then, everyone leaned forward and craned their heads up as it disappeared above the RV's roof. Everyone whipped their heads round in time to see the kite-thing, a shadow through the mist once again, glide the way the four had come, into the mist, and begone.

Julie and Ben stood, frozen by what they had just seen, and Julie waited to see if any more of the kite-things would follow the one they had just witnessed.

After about ten minutes, when nothing happened, she put the RV back in drive, and drove on, up the freeway, into who knows what else.

Like Kansas Road, most of the drivers had pulled over when the mist had reached the I-295, so it wasn't much harder to pass than Kansas Road.

After another two or three hours of driving, the four reached Portland, but Ron and Julie saw there had been an accident up ahead - if it had indeed not been one of the bigger things in the mist. To the RV's right, there was a neat row of cars pulled over, empty but most with their doors wide open.

But to her left, stood a small, yellow school bus, and just inches in front of it, up ahead, just in their line of sight through the mist, were two upturned cars. The furthest one was a State Police cruiser, pinned under a fallen utility pole.

Julie and Ron glanced at the school bus beside them. The sliding doors were open, and a few of the windows had been broken open.

Julie, slowly, glanced up at the second window from the front of the school bus ... and felt her heart fall with sorrow.

A boy, of about 14, was slumped against the window. His hair looked blonde, but Julie could not tell through the spiders' cobwebs which coated his head.

Blinking the tears from her eyes, Julie quickly sped away from the bus, away from the boy and who knows how many other defenceless children fallen prey to the bloodthirsty monsters of the mist, before she could see any more. But she knew in her heart, that she would never forget what she had seen that moment, as she would never forget seeing her own mother's blood-curdling demise.

The four reached New Hampshire at about 5 PM, when the fuel gage was almost upon the E. Three deep claw marks had been raked into the sign at the state border, obscuring the word "New" in New Hampshire's name on the sign.

They got to a small town in Northern New Hampshire, before the engine began to sputter and cough, and the RV began to jerk to a stop, and then forward a couple feet.

Then the engine gave one last sputter and the RV jerked to a stop and everyone fell silent.

Hope any of you reading this has enjoyed the fanfic so far. _The final chapter is coming!_


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"How much food do we have?" Julie demanded quietly.

In response, there was the gentle rattle of the fridge door, and then Kelly said, "Enough for two days, maybe three."

For what seemed like hours, there was a long pause. Then Julie let out a long sigh of defeat and slumped against her seat.

Two days, Ron thought.

"Try the radio," Julie said quietly.

At once, Ron reached for the RV radio's knob. The AM yielded only static, as did the FM, but with an occasional silent pause.

Ron looked up at Julie and saw his horror mirrored in her face. Then he turned the radio off, and the static was abruptly cut off.

Ron dragged himself from the passenger seat, moved to the fridge and swung the door open.

There was a carton of chocolate milk, and the freezer compartment held a quarter dozen boxes and packs of ice-cream.

Ron moved across the RV, to the cupboard above the sink, and looked in there. It held much more food than the refrigerator: a pack of chocolate-chip cookies, a few chocolate bars, and a loaf or two of bread.

Ron remembered how Kelly had only looked in the fridge, and guessed there was enough food to last them a week or two.

Ron glanced over his shoulder at the table and saw Ben and Kelly, across the table from one another, frozen, staring out into the mist beyond the window between them, taking no notice of him.

Then Kelly broke the silence. "Fuel," she murmured.

"Yeah, we used it all up!" Ron exclaimed.

"No, I mean I thought I saw a fuel station ten or twenty feet back," Kelly said, not taking her eyes off the window.

Ron realised at once what Kelly was thinking, but Julie beat him to it. "Are you f*cking crazy?"

"It's just ten or twenty feet," Kelly replied flatly, and Ron noticed from the blankness in her voice at once that she was in something like catatonia; she had lost next to all her common sense.

Kelly slowly got up from the table, turned towards the rear door, and grasped the handle.

Ron and Julie both rushed towards Kelly, but by the time they reached the spot where she had stood, she was opening the door and bursting out into the mist.

Ron at once remembered how the things in the mist hunt by smell, and without thinking any further, quickly slammed the door shut and craned his head for any sign of Kelly.

There was the sidewalk, and the rear bumper of a car in its driveway just in Ron's line of sight through the mist, but Kelly was gone.

"Is Kelly alright?" Ron heard Ben ask quietly, his voice trembling.

Ron opened his mouth to say that he hoped so, but before the first word could escape from his throat, a loud, choked scream came out of the mist from somewhere behind the RV.

Everyone's heads whipped round to face the bedroom at the back of the RV.

The scream had sounded at least fifteen feet behind the RV. But that was not distant enough.

It was Kelly.

Then, from the same distance away, echoed a deep, half-human bellow of victory.

For what seemed like hours, Ron and Julie stood by the rear door, unmoving, staring out its window into the mists of unknown hell.

Then Ron moved away from the door, towards the front of the RV.

He leaned forward, between the seats, staring out through the windscreen.

From what Ron could see through the mist, the RV was on a street with rows of dark, lifeless houses on either side. There were also three of four cars pulled over onto either side of the road, each with at least one door wide open.

A wire-mounted traffic light hung out of the mist overhead.

Ron thought about switching to another car, but any one of them could nest to some of the things in the mist, like the spiders, for all he knew, so he decided against it.

The rest of the day and the night passed slowly.

The remaining three people spend the afternoon just moving around, grabbing a snack or something.

At around 7:45, the mist dimmed back to its deep blue as night fell and the RV darkened. After dark fell, something occasionally roared or squawked or screamed from the dark mist.

Sometimes, a shadow in the mist would move past the windscreen or the sink or table window.

At about 11PM, Ron even saw a giant centipede crawl across the road through the mist in front of the RV.

From what Ron could tell, it was green and had hundreds of jointed legs and a segmented body with hairs running down it. It was at least thirty feet long, but the blue mist had obscured everything else about the centipede-thing.

Ben slept in the bed, Lenny on the covers, and Ron and Julie lay slumped against the opposite wall, staring at Ben, the handgun clutched tightly in Ron's hand.

The room was dimly lit by a bedside lamp in the middle of the floor. Blankets were drawn over it to filter the light, but it had still attracted one of the scorpion-wasps to the rear windscreen, but that was not enough to bring the pterodactyl-things, fortunately.

Ron and Julie had remembered how the lights in the house had attracted the bugs, and didn't want that to happen again.

The two sat, frozen, staring ceaselessly at their little brother as he slept on in the bed.

Then, at about 2 in the morning, Julie's pale lips parted as she broke the silence with "Ron, where did you get that handgun." And at once Ron felt a chill run down his spine as he pictured how Ben and Julie and Elisa would've reacted if he had used it for what he had intended to.

Ron immediately felt himself heat up with worry as his mind frantically searched for a better reason to make up, but there was none.

Ron was defeated. There were no lies to tell. He had to tell his sister the truth.

Ron felt the single sentence to explain why he had taken the gun build in his throat, and prepare to rise up and burst from his mouth.

But then, there came a deep, animal bellow from somewhere in front of the RV, and whatever had made it sounded big.

And before he knew it, Ron was bursting, full speed, across the RV, for the blue rectangle in the darkness beyond the bedroom doorway that was the windscreen.

Julie followed close behind.

Ron hurled himself at the back of the driver's seat to see what had made the animal cry. He thought about turning the headlights back on to get a clearer look through the dark mist, but then the memory of the bugs and the monstrous bird-things flooded back to him and he decided against it.

The headlights would not help him see any further through the mist anyway.

Ron glanced through the windscreen and felt his jaw drop in a mixture of shock and awe as a shadow at least four times the size of a size stomped out of the mist, a thud – made the RV jerk on its springs – vibrating through the road's tarmac with each quaking step.

From what Ron could see through the mist, the giant had four huge, thick, trunk-like legs and a pair of little forearms, like those of a T-Rex in a movie, and a giant head with a long snout, like a T-Rex.

In moments, the dinosaur-thing was right over them, and Ron could clearly see its left hind leg in front of the RV.

Its skin was an aqua colour. A few dozen black slug-leech things with hundreds of eyes on stalks all over their bodies clung to and crawled over the leg's skin.

In moments, the leg lifted up into the mist and slammed back down feet from the sink window, then rose up into the mist again.

Before Ron knew it, he was staggering backwards, towards the back of the RV.

By the time Ron reached the back of the RV and stared out the rear windscreen, Ben and Julie beside him, the dinosaur-thing was well past the RV.

Only the shadow of its long, thick tail against the mist remained, which Ron saw, ended in a spiked ball, like a mace.

Then the tail's shadow blurred and faded into the dark mist and was gone.

For what seemed like hours, everyone stayed frozen, eyes fixed almost obliviously on the rear windscreen.

Then Julie's voice broke the silence: "As I was saying, why do you have a gun, Ron?"

"Yeah, why?" Ben chimed in excitedly. "It'll be better if you get it off your chest already!" Julie cried angrily.

Ron opened his mouth in a long sigh and slumped against the wall opposite the bed, and just saw through the dim light the covered lamp provided, Lenny cowering in the darkness beneath the bed, from the passing of the dinosaur-thing.

Perhaps Julie might be wrong about that, but he couldn't keep a lie that big from Ben at least any longer. He took one more look at the handgun now resting in his lap.

And he said.

"You remember that vacation to Los Angeles a couple years back?" Ron said quietly. "While we were there, I stole the handgun from an arms store."

"But what for?" Ben pressed.

Ron hesitated for a moment. Then he said.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ron lowered his eyes to the floor.

"I stole it … for _suicide_."

Reluctantly, Ron glanced up, and his eyes were met with Julie and Ben's mouths twin Os of shock at this revelation.

Ben was first to reply. "But … _why_?"

Ron sighed. "When I was eleven, I didn't have a girlfriend, and I was _really_ depressed. I took the gun so I could commit suicide.

"But I still had you and Julie and Mom, and that made suicide a lot harder for me. But I kept it just in case I changed my mind one day."

Silence fell over the room for what seemed like hours.

Then Ben spoke. "Well, if you ask me, that's pretty selfish!"

Ron looked up in shock. "How?"

"You and Julie are what give me a reason to keep going anymore!" Ben proclaimed. "With who knows what out there in the mist right now, if it wasn't for you two, I'd probably shoot myself on the spot!"

Julie turned her eyes to Ben. "I would've done the same if I didn't have you two dicks."

They all exchanged warm smiles.

"We're all a bit old for it," Ben proclaimed, "but how about a bedtime story?"

Ron glanced around the small bedroom and his eyes eventually caught a _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ book, tossed aside at the foot of the bed.

Ron carefully scooped up the book in his hands, and rose into a comfortable sitting position. He opened the book to the first page, and begun to read.

Ron was woken by a loud THUPPATHUPPATHUPPATHUPPA! just like that which helicopter blades make when a helicopter passes overhead.

He slowly blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked around the bedroom.

Lenny was asleep under the bed, Julie against the wall, and Ben on the bedcovers.

In Ron's right hand was his handgun. In his left was the _Harry Potter_ book, open to the last page.

When Ron was fully awake, he staggered onto his feet and stared out the doorway.

The RV was as bright (through the mist at least) as day, the mist through the windows and windscreens its pale grey colour once again.

Ron wondered what time it was. He glanced down at his watch and nearly cried out.

It was 3:00 in the afternoon already! They had slept through the whole morning!

Ron was about to deny this as being possible in his mind, when a loud mechanical groan echoed around the RV.

Ron spun round.

Ben and Julie moaned slightly in their sleep, but did not wake up.

Ron moved up the sink, eyes fixed on the sink window, staring out the window at the sidewalk and rows of cars visible through the mist.

Then, Ron nearly cried out as something, large, green and metallic drove right past.

Then another. And more after that.

And before Ron knew it, he was bursting, full speed, for the radio.

He turned the knob … and felt relief wash over him as a warm-sounding man's voice came from the radio instead of static: "We are being told to urge people to stay indoors and keep all doors and windows closed. The Government has refused to admit to the origins of the creatures of the mist, but evidence points to 'the Arrowhead Project', a Government experiment conducted in Bridgton, Maine.

"So far, the phenomenon has been contained to the Eastern Seaboard and a military search and rescue has been initiated to rescue and escort survivors."

Then, Ron heard the squeak of the RV main door's hinges and footsteps against the RV's floor.

Then, Ron nearly jumped as a warm, yet unexpected voice said, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Ron spun round. A tall man covered in military uniform and an NBC gas mask stood by the open doorway.

_Open …_

"SHUT THE DOOR!" Ron yelled at the top of his voice.

The man jumped, and Ron just caught Ben and Julie in the bedroom jump awake.

"It's okay," the soldier said calmly, glancing back at the two awake figures moving from the room towards him. "There is a protected rescue convoy outside …"

Before the soldier could utter another word, Ron whipped round to see for any more Army vehicles and his eyes widened in shock.

The pale grey mist was thinning to show dark houses, a cloudless, blue sky … and an endless row of artillery vehicles and tanks, driving single file up the street, past the RV, from as far down it as Ron could see through the sink window.

Hundreds of NBC-suited soldiers, some with khaki capes, and each with what Ron guessed was a flamethrower, moved with the convoy on either side.

Every few minutes, one or two of the spiders or raptors or other misshapen monsters of the mist would tear full-speed from one of the abandoned houses or vehicles from the convoy, but would be turned into a quickly-crumbling shape of frenzied fire by a jet of flames from some of the soldiers' flamethrowers.

There were dozens of burning corpses of all shapes and sizes around the convoy, and a few of the pulled-over vehicles were burning, the burning spider-things nesting within screeching their last mewl-shrieks.

Most of the artillery vehicles each held dozens of different people, most looking worn out, without suits, and probably what was attracting the creatures to the convoy.

Ron glanced back at the soldier.

Julie and Ben stood a few feet behind him, edging cautiously.

"It's alright," the soldier said calmly, and reached out his hand to me.

Ron pictured the soldiers burning them to death to 'decontaminate' them, as he had seen in video-games and hesitated for a moment.

Then he saw, through the gas mask's lenses, the look in the eyes of the man beneath, and took his hand.

Julie and Ben did the same with his other hand, and he took them out, into the warm sunlight, the first time Ron had felt the warmth of the sun in over two days, towards an artillery vehicle pulled over onto a lawn across the road.

* * *

><p>Well, that's the story. Hope you enjoyed it.<p> 


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